During your midwife’s visits you have been asked to make Birth Plans. Perhaps you and your baby’s mother had talked about what you want for the birth of your baby long before you fell pregnant.
Here’s your wake up call.
You cannot plan a birth. You cannot choose a birth. What you want might not happen and what you dread might happen or put another way what you don’t want might happen and what you dread might not happen. You just don’t know and no one else does either. At a certain level birth is mysterious.
In reality you ‘do’ a birth. More accurately, the pregnant woman ‘does’ the birth and you help her ‘do’ it.
Unfortunately, Birth Plans are being used as Wish Lists or something like choosing items on a menu. You can’t actually plan your birth. You and your pregnant partner might ‘choose/plan’ a home birth but what will you ‘do’ if you end up in hospital? On the other hand what if you plan a hospital birth and find the birth happening in the car on the way there what will you ‘do’?
Making a Birth Plan will help you focus your attention … sort of like planning a wedding. But the actual experience of giving birth is nothing like a wedding. Giving birth is always an activity much like a climbing a mountain, running a marathon, driving on a long journey or participating in a play.
Do you and your partner have the right skills to ‘do’ this activity from your two roles … birthing woman and birth supporting father-to-be no matter how your baby’s birth unfolds?
Information, choice and skills
Ask yourself this simple question.
‘When my pregnant partner is having a painful contraction is it better if I know:
- How dilated her cervix is (information)?
- Why she’s gotten on her hands and knees (choice)?
- Or how to help her cope with the pain (skills)?
Right now there is a two-legged stool approach to childbirth : information leading to choices (Birth Plans). Without the right birth and coaching skills too many births end with disappointment, shame, blame and guilt.
Your bottom line:
Learn the skills to:
- Help prepare the woman’s pregnant body to let out your baby.
- Practice the skills then use both birth and coaching skills to work with your baby’s efforts to be born.
No matter how the birth unfolds you can always birth better because you both know how to do the activity better with skills than without.